After reading this BBC article on modeling the “tipping point” of polar bear populations, it seemed this photo summed it up well, especially since modeling was substituted in lieu of “nearly non-existent data”. I wonder how the bears survived the Roman Warm Period, or the Medieval Warm Period?
From the BBC: Polar bears face ‘tipping point’
By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News
Climate change will trigger a dramatic and sudden decline in the number of polar bears, a new study has concluded.
The research is the first to directly model how changing climate will affect polar bear reproduction and survival.
Based on what is known of polar bear physiology, behaviour and ecology, it predicts pregnancy rates will fall and fewer bears will survive fasting during longer ice-free seasons.
These changes will happen suddenly as bears pass a ‘tipping point’.
Details of the research are published in the journal Biological Conservation.
Educated guesses
Until now, most studies measuring polar bear survival have relied on a method called “mark and recapture”.
We may not see any substantial effect on polar bear reproduction and survival until some threshold is passed. At that point reproduction and survival will decline dramatically and very rapidly
Peter Molnar University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
This involves repeatedly catching polar bears in a population over several years, which is cost and time-intensive.
Because of that, the information scientists have gathered on polar bear populations varies greatly: for example, datasets span up to four decades in the best studied populations in Western Hudson Bay and Southern Beaufort Sea, but are almost non-existent for bears in some parts of Russia.
Even more difficult is measuring how survival and reproduction might change under future climatic conditions.
“Some populations are expected to go extinct with climate warming, while others are expected to persist, albeit at a reduced population size,” says Dr Peter Molnar of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.
However, these projections are essentially educated guesses, based on experts judging or extrapolating how current population trends might continue as the climate changes.
“So we’ve looked at the underlying mechanisms of polar bear ecology to assist our understanding of what will happen in a warming world,” Dr Molnar told the BBC.
Fasting and mating
Dr Molnar, Professor Andrew Derocher and colleagues from the University of Alberta and York University, Toronto focused on the physiology, behaviour and ecology of polar bears, and how these might change as temperatures increase.
“We developed a model for the mating ecology of polar bears. The model estimates how many females in a population will be able to find a mate during the mating season, and thus get impregnated.”
Male polar bears find females by wandering the ice, sniffing bear tracks they come across. If the tracks have been made by a female in mating condition, the male follows the tracks to her.
The researchers modelled how this behaviour would change as warming temperatures fragment sea ice.
They also modelled the impact on the bears’ survival.
Southern populations of polar bears fast in summer, forced ashore as the sea ice melts.
As these ice-free seasons lengthen, fewer bears are expected to have enough fat and protein stores to survive the fast.
By developing a physiological model that estimates how fast a bear uses up its fat and protein stores, the researchers could estimate how long it takes a bear to die of starvation.
“In both cases, the expected changes in reproduction and survival were non-linear,” explains Dr Molnar.
“That is, as the climate warms, we may not see any substantial effect on polar bear reproduction and survival for a while, up until some threshold is passed, at which point reproduction and survival will decline dramatically and very rapidly.”
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Read the entire story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8700000/8700472.stm
Now this is real science. Forget counting actual numbers of bears at all!!!!
Count the number of models used too!
So this is a model based on a model based on a model. Must be totally accurate then.
“We developed a model for the mating ecology of polar bears. The model estimates how many females in a population will be able to find a mate during the mating season, and thus get impregnated.”
“By developing a physiological model that estimates how fast a bear uses up its fat and protein stores, the researchers could estimate how long it takes a bear to die of starvation.”
“The researchers modelled how this behaviour would change as warming temperatures fragment sea ice.”
“That is, as the climate warms, we may not see any substantial effect on polar bear reproduction and survival for a while, up until some threshold is passed, at which point reproduction and survival will decline dramatically and very rapidly.”
The answer to all the heat problems for the polar bears has been solved long ago. Try to ignore the remarkably stupid person in the first photo (probably a Green Peace looney!) and proceed to the last one
http://travelerfolio.com/singapore-zoo-polar-bear/
Maybe you should borrow the last photo Anthony 🙂
Greenie German woman wants to get friendly with polar bear.
Bear thinks: “Mm-mm-m, lunch!”
Oh, for the love of….
These charlatans make me sick. Why the hell would you “model” something like this? Models tell us nothing – NOTHING! Models only contain the sum total of what little the programmer knows. B.S. in, B.S. out. In fact, what has just come out of that bear in the photo above amounts to about the same thing.
It would be far easier just to look at what knowledge we have of Polar Bears in relation to climate, and from that form some scientifically reasoned theories, using your brain. But no, these snakeoil salesmen have to build a computer “model,” as if that somehow gives credibility to their guesses. Where knowledge falls short, we have models.
“It’s science Jim, but not as we know it.”
Everyone is crying for the poor Polar Bears.
What about the Cartesian Bears? Are they extinct?
Seeing as how these bears only came into existence as a result of the last Ice Age, what’s the big deal? They survived the RWP and the MWP, which we now know were warmer and longer in duration than the recent warming we witnessed. Logic dictates a yawn.
I think the poley bears might like the new cushy weather. Don’t you remember the poley bear that they had to kill on that Pacific island in the TV series LOST?
Obviously these guys are too lazy to go out and collect data. That’s so yesterday and real world. So, they develop wet-dream models, that do just what their little fantasies want – do they have blow-up dolls of polar bears to play with?
“Some tipping point” is like saying “we want to guess and believe, based on our prejudices and pre-conceived wishes that” . . .
Tipping points such as they suggest do not exist as they would have occurred already as we have been much warmer than now in the recent past and had much higher CO2.
I know everyone has to have some reason for being, but can’t they find some kind of legitimate work rather than wasting time and resources on cartoon fantasies?
Perhaps the polar bear tipping point is gravitational:
http://i46.tinypic.com/2vx4ow6.gif
The sad state of science is not that there are such puerile analyses submitted, it is that they are published, and that the reviewers cannot find the gray cells to question such nonsense.
When polar bears have survived the much higher temperatures of the holocene period and the harsh conditions of the previous ice ages how somebody calling him/herself scientist can come up with such idiocies is amazing. And more shame to the peer reviewers.
It’s obvious why that polar bear is so cranky… there’s no Coca Cola in sight.
I’ve seen the evidence televised of the profoundly positive effects on polar bears of having a ready supply on hand. Clearly, we need a government subsidization program to remedy this issue!
glacierman says: “…The press should be smart enough to provide a little perspective; maybe analyze what is being presented a little. They are making fools of themselves.”
The are not fools, but tools.
David, UK says: “…Models tell us nothing – NOTHING! Models only contain the sum total of what little the programmer knows.”
As a maximum. Often, they contain a lot less. And often much of what the programmer knows isn’t true.
During the Holocene “Climate Optimum” (driven by orbital mechanics), the Arctic was warm enough so that trees grew on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Stumps of those trees can be found today (and have been dated by C14). Polar bears survived this period, a fact that any reputable model needs to be able to predict. (The scariest climate change scenarios probably predict Arctic warming greater than during the Holocene CLimate Optimum late in the 21st century, but those are scenarios, not facts.)
I just the love the way from a ‘sparse’ and incomplete data set, they can reliably project forwards and succeed in modeling the behavior of a ‘canny’ and adapting predator… I just get a distinct feeling that as computers before more powerful at lower cost points, they have to keep inventing more complex ways of ‘processing’ the data to justify buying more kit and keeping the grant money flowing.
To me the real shame here is the opportunity cost; i.e. what else could they have been researching on instead that would actually produce something useful? This whole grant led ‘fantasy’ is probably setting back the pace of real research somewhat by starving the useful research of funds..
Perhaps the good doctors should do a parallel study of the ecological behaviour of seals. They too would have to come ashore!! My concern would be that with a linear hunting field, polar bears would get too fat and lazy.
“Southern populations of polar bears fast in summer”
best idea with a coat that warm.
“while starvation mortality is currently negligible,”
does this mean zero?
I would like to let you all know that I did a special on Polar Bears with a wonderful expert who has been in the business of working with them for 30 years. His name is
Mitch Taylor. I hope you like it. I learned a great deal in this discussion.
http://itsrainmakingtime.com/2010/polarbears